Sharon Shoesmith says social care cuts put more children’s lives at risk
More children will die at the hands of their parents because of budget cuts, disgraced former council boss Sharon Shoesmith warned today.
Ms Shoesmith, who lost her job in Haringey after 17-month-old Peter Connelly was killed, said that all the "good developments" in social care will be undone by today's "dreadful" financial situation.
In her first national public speech since her dismissal, Ms Shoesmith, who was director of Haringey council children's services when baby Peter died in 2007, said: "All of these good developments we've had and now we've got this dreadful financial situation, this dreadful financial settlement.
"Child poverty will rise and I don't think there's any doubt about that. I think everyone now expects that these cuts are going to hit hard on vulnerable children.
"Yes, child poverty will rise, but if we stop measuring it how will we know? It all does translate into higher risk for children, the risk of more children dying at the hands of their desperate parents."
Ms Shoesmith cited a review into social care and the scrapping of many quangos — which she dubbed a "hallelujah moment" — as examples of positive changes.
Her comments come after Tory London deputy mayor Kit Malthouse said cutting frontline services could leave youngsters in danger.
Mr Malthouse, who is chairman of the Metropolitan Police Authority, said he was "concerned" that overstretched boroughs could struggle to cope leaving the police to take up the slack.
He told the London Assembly: "We've seen issues in this city in the past sadly around child protection. I know how easy it is for lacunae to open up in that protection when the eye is taken off the ball.
"Everybody is focused on the objective of trying to maintain the frontline but I'm just nervous that about the position local authorities have been put in." Speaking at the North of England Education Conference in Blackpool today, Ms Shoesmith, said: "I want to start by saying that the murder of Peter Connelly when I was director of children's services in Haringey is something I struggle to live with every day, as do the social workers who knew him.
"There was never any doubt about how sorry and distressed we were by his brutal murder."
